天涯何处觅知音

1.开会的时候，主讲人提到了这个电影，好奇，于是下载下来看。

2.整体感觉不怎么地，原来外国也拍烂片。

3.女主长得真美。到现在才发现大眼睛的姑娘都那么好看。男主很帅气，虽然有点眉压眼，但是我喜欢他雕塑般的脸。

4.这个悲剧是怎么造成的呢？我认为是父母的错。青春期的孩子身体心理都在急剧变化着，青春期是孩子从少年走向成年的关键时期。这时候的父母应该多关心孩子，和孩子敞开心扉的交谈，了解孩子的所思所想，而不是总是关注着自己的事业；多倾听少教导，倾听孩子的心声，了解孩子的烦恼，为孩子排忧解难，而不是一味地无意识地给孩子压力，逼迫孩子；从小培养孩子的抗压能力。写到这儿，才发现这是一个教育片。

5.这个悲剧发生在美国经济大萧条时期，这个电影侧面表现出了当时人们的经济生活。

6.电影最后女主从精神病院返回家中，母亲向女儿间接道歉那个桥段，特别煽情，感动，但是女儿精神病很大一部分原因是父母对孩子缺乏关心导致的，煽情也掩盖不了父母的责任。人都不是生下来就会做父母的，但是这不是理由，你可以看书，可以学习提升自己啊。

7.结尾，这么好的一对璧人，最后却没有在一起，让人唏嘘。这种令人感伤的结尾，更能深化父母要多关注孩子心理成长的主题，引人深思，也衬托出女主可怜可悲的性格，男主无情冷酷的性格（为什么娶了别人）。

8.这个电影很色，总是亲啊亲，不喜欢。青春期就总想这个吗？不学习不生活了吗？

9.为什么男主想上耶鲁大学就能上，他学习也没多好啊，因为是体育特长生吗？

10.他父亲大男子主义，经受不了挫折，股票跌了，就跳楼自杀，真庆幸他死了，要不这个儿子也会和姐姐一样沦落至死。

Two teenagers falling in love in Kansas 1928, Deanie and Bud (Wood and Beatty) are the ne plus ultra of high school sweethearts, he is a jockey born with a silver spoon, she is as lovely as a storybook princess, both parents are quite content with their pairing, then why, in Kazan’s SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS, apart from the fallout of the imminent and fateful Crash of 1929, their lives will be permanently scarred, and both opt for a settling-for-less middle ground.

As incisive as Kazan’s brand constantly boasts, here the bane is sexual repression and the bigotry from the moral majority, Bud is eager to marry Deanie as he can barely keep his libidinous urge in check, while Deanie, dinned into behaving like a “good girl” by her mother (Christie, giving the performance of her lifetime here, brings so much deeper pathos and affection from a conventional mother figure, and completely subverts our usual question: is she a good or bad mother? Her quiddities can be applied to more than a generation of women and then some, and her insularity is a sign of the times), is fretted by whether or not she should “go all the way” with the boy she madly loves. Also, the prevailing double standard between different sexes plays a crucial role to drive them apart, as a male, Bud has an easier solution to his problem, all he needs is the help of a different kind of girl, but his self-seeking conduct terminally disturbs Deanie, pushing herself to the extreme and she is sent away to a psychiatric institution.

Since then, their paths only converge in the end, and Inge’s Oscar-winning script considerately conceives a more auspicious direction for Deanie, albeit the mental distress, she recovers and finally can make her peace with Bud, and her family fares much better in the aftermath of the financial catastrophe than Bud’s. Also Wood unequivocally delivers her best performance ever, Deanie’s vulnerability and anguish are elicited to an electrifying effect through her all-pouring commitment, though Wood still feels insecure to deglamorize her screen persona, however, under the tutelage of Kazan, that sense of insecurity becomes a bonanza which pointedly characterizes Deanie’s own plight. Wood looks particularly heartbreaking during the treacherous drowning scenes, we all know her blamed tragedy, that really casts a pall here.

Beatty, in his film debut, already struts his stuffs which will make him a movie star, his Bud is virile, seductive, but also unpretentious, a quality soon will desert him as he matures and his star is rising. Here, Beatty’s most astounding act is actually neither with Deanie, nor with Bud’s overbearing and paternalistic father (played by a gimpy Hingle blasting every line into our cochlea with maximal volume, a pyrrhic victory of acting for my money, though I would appreciate someone who could be less forceful), but the dramatic charge between Bud and his promiscuous sister Ginny (Loden), the black sheep of the family, who rebels in the most radical, tactless, self-destructive way. But being the member of the weaker sex, Ginny can never win, she is the victim of a phallocratic society, which makes the scene where she slaps Bud in the face such an instance of emotion-packed effusion, Loden, who was romantically involved with Kazan at that time, is also uncompromisingly baring it all to audience’s utter amazement.

Festooned by David Amram’s richly boisterous jazz soundtrack, and albeit the eye-rolling adults-playing-teens factitiousness, Kazan’s SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS is a searing social drama full of hearts, theatrics and delectation, it potently reminds us the fight against human bigotry, sexism and paternalism is a never-ending battle, and we shall never let up.

referential entries: Kazan’s WILD RIVER (1960, 7.5/10); Robert Mulligan’s LOVE WITH THE PROPER STRANGER (1963, 7.7/10).